97 mark viii lights not working now car won't start, melted wires, soooo lost

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4v97viii

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hey guys, its been along time since i have been on here and posted anything, but i search the forums frequently when my car acts up.my car is a bone stock 97 mark viii. ok, i have a serious problem. my tail light ballast shorted out and almost caught fire, it melted the plug all the way to the trunk latch harness. after that, only the high beam lights work and just the passenger side low beam light, none of the marker or turn lights work now, it blew the fuse for the passenger side lights so i replaced it after i cut the bad wire back at the tail light and separated them. now in the dash, the right side blinker stays solid but it doesn't flash if i turn on signals or the hazards, also the high beam indicator does not work now. the whole car smells like wires burning, but i think it is all from the trunk. anyway, move on about 2 weeks, it sat till yesterday, i cranked it and it ran fine. so, this morning, i ran it for about 20 minutes and took it down the road about a 1/2 mile since its been sitting. afterwards, i went to LKQ and bought a used center tail light and harness and came home all excited. i replaced the harness and put in the new light and now the car will not crank. it just makes a clicking sound every time i try to start it, it is not the started clicking, it sounds like a relay on the driver side area beneath the steering wheel and behind the fuse panel. i immediately unplugged the new tail light and it still wont do anything, i pulled out the battery charger and let it charge, and nothing... can anyone please please offer me some help??
i googled and googled and cant find anyone with the issues i am having.
many many thanks in advance!!!! :confused:
 
thanks for the quick replay micahs97m8, man, i wish you still had the spare parts.
 
ok, so i went out and tried to see what the scil thing looked like... no dice, its in as bad a shape as the tail light ballast. i think it was amazing that the car was running giving the shape of it. i have questions now, the thing definitely shorted out, but none of the wiring looked melted. i unhooked the batty and unbolted it gonna pull the wires and 2 of the connectors are stuck in place, it looks like they fused pretty much... gotta love this fancy stuff. anyhow, im gonna ride back to the junkyard and see if that parts car my lights came off of has this thing and not burnt like mine. my question is, if i cant remove the 2 plugs, is it safe to cut the plugs off the other car and just cut mine off and splice them together? or should i try and try to get thing unplugged and only cut as a last resort? i have pics and am trying to get them uploaded. thanks
 
pics

here is my scil? looks like my tail light ballast, no wonder none of my lights work...

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Looks like your SCIL shorted out for sure. I have one sitting on the shelf. You will definitely need it. Your key will need to be reprogrammed to the new SCIL. That's the first time I've seen one short out like that.
 
ok, just got back inside... the car is stock everything, not even any aftermarket stereo stuff, so dunno? i went back to LKQ and bought the scil out of their car and just finished temporarily installing it. i am doing the key relearn (courtesy of bluebmw83 thread on reprogramming the key to different scil) and am on the first of the 3 15 minute cycles. all my lights are working normal now except the center tail light, maybe its a bad one? but my flashers are working, the indicators on the dash are working and i all the headlights but the d/s low beam. i have pics of the new used scil and of the old one out of the car and some of the connections, lets just say that i have the best bad luck, because i took this car down the road yesterday and omg, its amazing it didnt burn to the ground! hopefully my experience can help out someone else in the future...
 
ok, the anti-theft just stopped flashing, time for step 2! man if this works, this is gonna be AWESOME!!!!
 
quick question for all the die-hard real lincoln mechanics on here... is there any other modules i need to be checking before i try and crank this baby back up? the batty has been connected for about 20 minutes now and the scil and the center tail ballast are still cool and not smoking...yet, lol, but seriously i hope they dont start!
i have to give everyone out there and on this board a big thumbs up and high 5 for helping me figure this crazy mess out, thanks.
 
crap crap crap!!!! it made it almost thru the 2nd 15 minute theft light flash cycle and the scil made a click and the theft light quit blinking, i thought maybe it sped the process up or something so i turned the ignition on and off for the 3rd cycle and now the theft light doesnt light up... i turned the car off and took the key completely out and now the theft light is slowly flashing at me instead of the fast flash that it was doing???
 
still screwed...

ok, i have unhooked the battery unhooked the new used scil and then hooked it all back up... none of the lights are working and the only time the theft light blinks is when i take the key out. i gave up for the day, i unhooked the battery again and put the charger on it and took out the scil and gave it a good smelling, it smelled fine, not like wires or anything. do yaw think i screwed up this scil?

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WTF? Something is shorted somewhere. The question is why are the fuses not working right?
 
... ey ya yiii

the only fuse that popped was the 15amp #7... i dunno, im lost. there is no wiring work done on it as long as i have owned it. all the lights worked fine when i hooked the 2nd scil up until the scil made a clicking noise in the middle of the 2nd key reprogram. has anyone confirmed that the 3 15 minute cycles will actually reprogram the key? the only good thing about this whole fiasco is that i got to pull some mint looking tail lights off the one they were parting out... hopefully someone can give me some advise about the reprogram issue for the scil, has anyone else had their scil click when you try and start the car? yesterday, the only clicking i heard was from the driver side kick panel area around the ecm when i was trying to crank it, the starter will not even try to engage.
can i get some scil info for these cars? from all the people that changed the scil on a 97, does it in fact have to be programed by the dealer?
keep the posts coming, i need this figured out!
 
ok, i have both the 1st and 3rd already book marked from last night searching, i had not run across the 2nd one though, good info... ok people, i need to know if anyone has a scil with the matching keys? my car only has 1 key, its all it came with. if i can get the new scil to reset, hopefully it will with the batty being off all night, will it be able to relearn my key if the 45 min reprogram is used, or do i need a new un-programmed key? thanks again!
 
I've got a few with the lock cylinder, key, and module that go with each other. I think all of them only have one key though. But I know for a fact they work. I had hoped that relearn procedure worked, as I had read that also. I hadn't had any reason to try it yet. I bought a 97 a couple of years ago with no keys and had a locksmith make 2 keys and program them to the scil. Probably your cheapest bet is to find a good locksmith to reprogram your key. If not I will gladly sell you a pair, but I also think you probably have a partially melted wire somewhere causing a short problem.
 
ok mygreat8 and chargerxr, can yaw pm me some prices? im gonna try and plug everything back up tomorrow after work and see if it will let me try the relearn process again. i think my issue all started when the rear ballast shorted and that caused the scil to short... it has to be scil related, if the one i bought doesnt let me retry the program and the theft light doesnt come on until i take the key out, i definitely need another scil. since i only have one key to my old burnt up scil, i prolly think its best to buy a matching set of the electronic mess so i can hopefully get this to work! thanks everybody
 
Holy crap.... that's some meltdown you had!

Stuff like that would be having me figuring out some way to put a carburator on top and get rid of electronics if that happened to me.
 
There is something deep in the wiring that has gone haywire. I don't know about you, but I think it may be time to cut your losses on this car before you dump any more money into it. :confused:
 
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